


Broca Divided Heart

by Mitch



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7877200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitch/pseuds/Mitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jack punched Daniel things were going to have to change between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broca Divided Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This was written for the rewatch on Spacemonkey, so yeah, we know what is in store for these boys in the future so when this story has foreshadowing in it, we already know it's gonna come true. So often, when our dear archaeologist is kidnapped, bound, rendered unconscious, killed, or even consumed by imaginary flames, the first person he calls for is our dear colonel. So this follows the rewatch series I wrote for Emancipation and ties in with Jack's emotional state in that early mission. This is the budding newness of what we all know will be an epic relationship.
> 
> Warning, Jack angst and genuine sadness. The middle of this very short story points out some sad elements in Jack's life and that ultimately, Jack was the one who had to make changes.

Broca Divided Heart  
By Mitch

Jack sat in the ornate, low chair across from High Councilor Tuplo and stared at his tactical gloves. His naked fingers laced loosely looked utterly guilty to him. Guilty. Guilty, and still showing a slight bruising, knuckles that had impacted the side of Daniel's face hid themselves under his gloves and were the pinpoint of guilt. Hidden, but guilty.

Jack's shoulders were up around his ears, his head bowed, his back bowed, his soul black. He'd laid into Daniel. Of all the things that had happened during the past few days, the infection spreading like wild-fire through the facility, people locked in cells, his one swamping memory was of the way he'd swung and how his fist had landed.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, ignoring the stupid chatter of his 2IC, of the freaky feather-wearing weirdo rulers and their anger at him bringing Daniel back here to their stupid, sacred place to recover. Carter kept chattering. Tuplo kept sputtering. The half naked guards kept guarding. Teal'c kept being Teal'c.

Anger and guilt. So, not just guilt. Anger. He shook his head and swallowed. Too much roared through him. Guilt, and he fully knew it now. Waking up from the cure, deciding he'd go face what he did? He knew in his heart that he'd been living with guilt of a different kind…oh, so much longer than just a few days. So much longer.

Daniel had been ushered into the Stargate program like some fragile god. Jack had stood with his back to briefing room walls, watching those who watched over the most prized and misunderstood, Doctor Jackson. Hush hush, let's get him in here, get him to open the gate and then good 'ole Jack O'Neill will take a one-way trip to end any threat to Earth. It was the least Jack could do with what was left of his life.

He was set to do that. Confident he'd do it. Knew he'd do it. And then they'd assigned him to watch over the floppy-haired, undisciplined doctor nut-case. People called him that behind his back even while they hung on his every word, so it was in Jack's mind, the label, nut-case.

Mourning. Jack was in mourning. He wanted to stay in mourning, to live his last days in the pain, the sweet memories of Charlie. Yeah, while watching Doctor Jackson. And he hadn't understood the feeling that had crept over him. It had been guilt. Sarah was at home, living in mourning. Jack was under the mountain determined to live his last days in mourning but with the added duty of watching the archaeologist. He should have been watching Sarah, not the archaeologist, not giving into the need to avoid going through mourning to the other side.

On a distant world, that first trip through, he'd stepped off the gate's platform and now knew that what he felt was guilt then too. He'd turned his back on the fallen archaeologist, let someone else help him to his feet, get his bearings, get over the cold rush and sickness. Someone else touched him, held him. Not Jack. Because he couldn't.

The battle on and in the air above Abydos had planted the archaeologist in his mind, had taken hold like the roots of a mighty oak. Guilty of allowing that to happen too, yep.

That year on Earth without the archaeologist, Jack had gone through so much! He'd realized that his life with Sarah was over. They'd sat through a few counseling sessions, listened to the statistics of divorce following the loss of a child, it was all stacked against them and Jack had not allowed himself to understand the other guilt he felt, the one that didn't have anything to do with Charlie or Sarah.

In the great hall of the rule or the Land of Light, Carter came over to him. Jack cleared his throat and managed to avoid wiping his eyes.

"Sir, would you like some water? We don't know how long it's going to take Daniel to wake up from the cure."

Wordlessly, Jack took the offered canteen, studying his gloved hand, the hidden, bruised knuckles. He studied the bare fingers that had brushed through Daniel's hair after Tealc' had laid him down on the pallet. His throat felt too closed to swallow water. Carter, thankfully, didn't notice.

Her duty done, she left him to his brooding.

A year on Earth, Jack had gone through the dissolution of a marriage, started the genuine grieving process for his son, had moved to a new house that didn't have an upstairs where a child's room might be, bought a truck that had no back sat for hauling little-leaguers, and he'd bought a telescope. He'd started jogging in the mornings because being retired meant no exercise routine designed by an air force doctor, and of course, no kid to run around the yard with. He ate right which meant no pizza on Thursdays as was the routine with a kid, but switched to a darker beer, and had to add time to his jog to compensate for the increased calorie of that imported beverage. He'd reorganized his retirement funds, cut back on a few expenditures to compensate for leaving the military years ahead of schedule, but no so much, really, as there was no college fund to build any longer. He gained a little weight and stopped with the flat-top haircuts at the base barber's. He'd had his medals framed and put on the mantle, something he'd never have done when Charlie was alive. Guns and war and soldiering wasn't part of their home. Not until the last day it was a home.

But he'd done his best to get back to living. So much of his life changed. And the one constant that changed not at all was his feelings about the absent archaeologist. Guilt tinged his memories of the man.

When he'd stepped through the gate to the archaeologist again, something he'd only dreamed of, he couldn't even look at the man. Guilt, he now knew, had kept his gaze away.

A hand-full of missions later and he'd lashed out in the most heinous way possible. He'd struck him. And why? Because there'd been some mention of a woman. Jack's mixed up, denied feelings had come out so wrong! It wasn't about Carter, wasn't about anybody going to see her. It was about…

Sitting here in the receiving hall of the chancellor, he hurt. His heart hurt! It felt split in half. Broken.

Under the mountain, back before the gate had been opened, there'd been no future for him, but the archaeologist had led him to one. On Abydos, with the bomb ready, there'd been an ending for him, but again, the archaeologist had asked that simple question. Why are you so ready to die? And with that question, had led Jack to a future without death. 

Then Jack had struck him and broken his own heart. With that first blow his heart had been split wide open and inside it was full of guilt.

What was the guilt covering? Was it…dare he even think the word? Love?

A rustling on the raised platform jerked him from his pit of misery.

"Jack?"

Sweeter had nothing ever sounded in his life! Jack rushed to him and then pulled himself to a stop before he could grab the befuddled man into his arms. 

The cure was spread, people wandered from the dark side into the light. Jack stood by his team and showed his sense of satisfaction. 

They walked back to the gate, Jack, the archaeologist, Carter and Teal'c. Jack's head was bowed and he was smiling. Jack. It had been the first thing uttered when the archaeologist woke. Jack. First thing he'd said. First person he'd thought of. First one he'd asked for. Jack. He watched lithe, strong fingers deftly dial the address for Earth. Jack brought his head up and, like he did so long ago, watched the man.

Daniel lifted his gaze, his eyes meeting Jack's and after a moment, mirrored the Colonel's smile. "Time to go home."

"Daniel." Jack smiled broader.

"Jack?"

Jack nodded. It felt so damned good to hear that! He was tempted to repeat that little exchange. So he did. "Daniel."

"Jack?"

Joy sang through him and he laughed boisterously. Yep. That was something he was going to repeat a hell of a lot!

Back home, he invited the archaeologist over for pizza and one of those dark beers. The pizza consumed over conversation about a sport Daniel seemed completely ignorant of, they then moved to the sunken living room and its low-crackling fireplace. "Remember when I brought you here, right after you returned from Abydos?"

"Yeah." Daniel took the offered beer and sat on the brown, leather chair.

Jack surprised him by perching on the overstuffed chair's arm.

"I wanted to say something. I want you to know I'm sorry I hit you."

"You weren't yourself." Daniel turned the cold bottle in his hands, staring at the label.

"Doesn't matter. I'm sorry, but in a way, I'm not."

Daniel's eyebrows rose and he frowned up at the man. "I beg your pardon?"

Jack cleared his throat and was brave because he could see Daniel was being defensive. That wasn't the first time Daniel had been punched. "It kind of jarred me too. Not as much as it did you," he added with a depreciative shrug. "Made me realize I had some strong feelings."

"I see," Daniel said very slowly, very cautiously.

"I felt really guilty for hitting you because I care a lot about you."

"Yeah?" The caution, the defensiveness had not waned even a little bit. "It wasn't about Captain Carter?"

Jack shook his head. "I felt a lot of guilt. When you were gone for that year, I thought a lot about you and I went through some big changes in my life. Then you were suddenly back in it, here," he said, waving a hand at the room around them. "Here. And I didn't really understand. It was guilt. Then I went and hurt you. I mean I punched holy hell out of you, Daniel."

"It's all right—"

"No. Sick or not. It's far from all right. I'm apologizing to you for that, and for the odd mixed signals I'm sure I've been giving you. One minute calling you geek and the next, wanting to be your best friend."

"I get it." Daniel frowned.

"I hope not." Jack laughed and stood. "But after I clear things up, I hope you will get it." He paced in front of the fireplace. "I really like you. Have since we first met way back before the gate was open. I've wanted to be a close friend. Closer, probably. So I gave off mixed signals and that wasn't fair to you."

"No. I see," Daniel managed to murmur. He adjusted his glasses and took a few tiny sips of the dark beer.

"So what I'm trying to explain is that what I was feeling was guilt. It's kind of gotten in the way of things. So I invited you over here tonight to kind of clear the air."

"Guilt over?" Daniel inclined his head toward Jack, inviting more clarification.

"So, before your ride gets here---You know, you need to get a car of your own. You've been back on Earth for months now. You need a car."

"You invited me over here to give me advice on transportation? General Hammond has the car service—"

"No." Jack waved his hand in the air to shoo away the subject. "I wanted to say, I felt guilt over the way I treated you in the early days of the program. I was in mourning and didn't really want anyone to be nice around me, or to me, or me to them."

"I know," Daniel said softly.

"And when we were fighting Ra, you were so very nice to me."

"I don't remember it that way. I remember being a bit of a bastard to you."

Jack chuckled. "Perspective is funny. You were. You know you talked me out of being suicidal. Truth here, Daniel. You did. And then these past few months on our missions as SG-1—"

"You don't talk someone out of being suicidal. You may help them see the big picture, cause them to question but it's up to them. Up to you. It was up to you on Abydos."

"Yeah. You said something very simple and it caused me to stop and take a look at myself. It really is about me, my rush to die, my needs, what was going on inside me and it was up to me to change that. And there, I could have said something to you, told you thanks. Told you I wanted you as a friend. Appreciated you. Respected you, but I didn't. I felt guilty for having all those feelings. Truth here, Daniel. I didn't even know I had the feelings until I hit you."

Daniel blinked and leaned back. "You're welcome?"

Jack chuckled again. "Yeah. Jarred some sense into me. I've been a bit testy lately. I understand why now. I didn't want to have any feelings about anything or anyone. Just wanted to grieve and die. You asked me why, so I asked myself why and found that I didn't need to. So, you asked and I came home, started living again. But there was still that guilt."

Daniel sat the empty bottle on a coaster and gazed up at the man. "You made decisions. You made changes, choices. Nothing to feel guilty about—" The doorbell interrupted him. His ride was there. Daniel stood. "I'll…" He shrugged and glanced between the door and the colonel.

"Come again. Cook out this weekend, okay?"

Daniel tilted his head, cleared his throat and then after adjusting his glasses, nodded. He walked up the two steps to the front door and opened it to see the waiting airman.

Jack smiled. "Good night, Daniel."

Daniel turned back and nodded again. After a moment he smiled. It was a shy smile, head slightly bowed, eyes blinking. He licked his lips. "Jack."

The door closed and Jack blew out a long, slow breath. "Damn," he swore and shook his head. Swiftly, he downed the last of his beer. He swooped up Daniel's half-full bottle and deposited both in the green bin in his kitchen and then had to stop and lean against the counter. "Damn." He grinned. Jack. It was the first thing Daniel had said on waking. That one call had erased the guilt from Jack's heart, had pulled the two halves together again.

Daniel calling out his name. The grin stretched across his face and he chuckled in satisfaction. Was that, Daniel saying his name, was that was the start of a new trend? If on waking, would Daniel call for him? When in need, would his name be the first on Daniel's lips? The first person he sought in times of stress, need, danger, loneliness? Love? Jack swallowed, eyes wide in his empty kitchen. Love? In times of happiness, satisfaction, contentment, would he call out Jack's name first? 

Jack squared his shoulders, flicked off the kitchen light and went to bed. Yeah, he was going to hear his name on that man's lips again tomorrow. And the day after. And…yeah.

End


End file.
